Hi Paul - I am also a newbie, but have been approaching thsi for the other direction - knowing Java and not knowing Lisp or any other FP language.
What I have found is that I really strive to spend most of my time in Clojure, not Java. Hence I only really use java when I *have* to. And even then, all I ever do is instantiate a class or 2 and call a method. I do not use swing (java GUI package) and have not (so far) found the need for much else. I would go online and read an intro tutorial or two for Java just to familiarize yourself with the basic constructs. I would also browse the java API at http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/api/ . I think that you will find that you can learn the java you need on the fly. Regarding Clojure I got Stuart Halloway's book Programming Clojure ( http://pragprog.com/titles/shcloj/programming-clojure ) and it was fantastic because it gave me a strong intro really quickly. What I didn't expect is how many times I have fond myself going back to the book. It has more advanced concepts (at least for me... !) that I didn't pick up on when I first was starting. This has been a real bonus for me. Also, I spend a *lot* of time on this site and ask a lot of really dumb questions. Clojure has the best group support by far of any language I have ever seen. The people on this board are truly amazingly helpful and patient - even with us newbies :) The hardest part for me was getting things configured. It is really confusing - particularly if you have no background to java. Most of the users here use emacs for their IDE. If you know emacs you can certainly try that. There is Clojure in a Box that is a self contained package If you do not use emacs ( I do not - it is too damn confusing for me) then i recommend using and IDE that has clojure support. There is one for Netbeans called Enclojure. I use Eclipse and a plugin called CounterClockwise. I really like it. Stu Halloway has a great starting tutorial with instructions on how to get up to speed and has a series of tutorials via a web server (integrated into the app). It is located at: http://github.com/relevance/labrepl This is where I would start. It has helped me out immensely. Cheers Base On May 27, 6:53 am, Paul Moore <p.f.mo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, > I'm new to Clojure, and looking for the best way to get going. I've > got a pretty broad experience of various programming languages (C, > Python, Lua, Factor, JavaScript, Haskell, Perl, ...) including a bit > of experience with Lisp-like languages, so the language itself isn't > likely to be a huge problem for me. But I've no background with Java > (beyond a few "toy" programs, and knowing the syntax) so the > environment (classpaths, compiling, where to find libraries, > performance, JVMs, etc) is pretty much a mystery to me. > > I've browsed a bit online, read some of the wikibook articles, and > Mark Volkmann's excellent summary, but I'd like to dig a bit deeper > (as I say, particularly around libraries and environment, less on how > to program in a lisp-like language). Ideally, in a form that I can > read offline (printable/PDF documents, or books) as I've got limited > free time I can spend in front of a computer screen. I've got a sample > program I have tried porting from Python - the experience was > interesting, but limited (the core of the relatively complex > multithreaded database monitoring process converted to 47 lines of > Clojure...!!!) > > Has anybody got any good suggestions as to where I should go next? > I've considered getting one of the Manning books (The Joy of Clojure > or Clojure in Action) but I'm not sure which would be better for me - > they seem broadly similar, with Clojure in Action looking like a > slightly better fit for my needs, but I'd appreciate any > comments/recommendations). Also, I wonder whether there's some > Java-based documentation that would be worth my while investigating. I > suspect that it'd be very easy to get sucked into a huge amount of > detail which is only tangentially related at best, but I'm sure an > overview would help. > > Thanks for any suggestions, > Paul. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Clojure" group. To post to this group, send email to clojure@googlegroups.com Note that posts from new members are moderated - please be patient with your first post. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to clojure+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/clojure?hl=en
